About Bipolar Bodhisattva

This website was established way back in 2006 when I called it Tempest in a Tibetan Bowl. I just thought it was nice imagery to describe the way I often felt. At the time, I was a mother of a three-year-old living in very crowded circumstances where no one had a job. Caring for a three-year-old is hard enough as it is, but under those circumstances in addition to the fact that I was getting over about three years of postpartum depression, I wasn’t in a very good state of mind. I began this blog as an attempt to soothe my constantly stressed and freaking brain.

This is no longer Tempest in a Tibetan Bowl, it is now Bipolar Bodhisattva. While I have always identified with the Bodhisattva and his message of bodhicitta, it wasn’t until about seven years ago that I was given the controversial, and as it turned out, incorrect, label of having bipolar spectrum disorder. And it is a spectrum, not just an up-and-down thing like so many people mistakenly believe. In my opinion, bipolar disorder may be the most misunderstood neurodivergence next to schizophrenia and its associated disorders. So I’m going to unpack what bipolar really means to me, why it isn’t a very accurate label, and why I’m going ahead and running with it. Because fuck labels.

Oh yeah, I use the word ‘fuck’ a lot. I mean, I really like it, that’s one of my favorite words ever. You can use ‘fuck’ to mean just about anything. I’ll probably write a whole post on how much I adore profanity, but in particular the word ‘fuck’. So yeah, fucking get used to it, or hit the back button. I understand why some people don’t like that word, but I think it’s mostly because they’ve only been exposed to it in a negative context, and there is so much beauty and power in the F word that my inner Gordon Ramsay loves to channel it.

The story of how my bipolar diagnosis came to be known as incorrect, yet still the only term society knows to give me, will be told eventually, but the long and the short of it is that due to a long series of as yet unnoticeable transformative events, I had what I call a severe neurodivergent crisis, or an ND crisis, what society commonly refers to as a nervous breakdown, or more severely, a psychotic break.

That was a little over three weeks ago, give or take: it’s hard to pin down a particular fixed point in time to say “A-ha, there’s where things went wrong!” I keep thinking I’ve done that only to find another step in the long series of events that led to what I call the Anarchist’s Caravan, a term I will unpack elsewhere soon. No, I am not an anarchist, it’s just the name of a character.

How I got where I am now will be revealed in another post, perhaps more than one, but the point is that I had an experience I am compelled to share, and as such I have returned to this site I started a long time ago to utilize it in the fashion in which I intended it to be used. Only this time I am doing a major overhaul of the site in just about every way except the core: the posts. The posts are so damned important and I’m going to have to read each and every one of the because they all contain insight into the Caravan and how it finally did not stop, but slowed way way down, enough for me to enjoy the ride and actually get something done instead of being handcuffed to a speeding train.

As I stated in the About page, I essentially used the power of music along with some other stuff to make my way back to reality, and I’ve decided to use the revamping of this website to not only explain myself, to myself, but also to everyone else in the perhaps vain hope that one more expressive blog on the internet might be enough to push back against the rising tide.

I know that’s not enough, though, which is why there’s a greater vision embedded in the eventual manifestation of the site that I do hope carries some momentum with it. If it doesn’t, I’ll have made something really badass, because I’m pretty fucking proud of what the site looks like, what it will look like, and what I intend to use it for, and everything I used in order to build it almost entirely alone can be used to carry me into the future, whatever it looks like.

So yes, I may be pissing into the wind here, but I really did wake up one day with the hope-driven belief and knowledge that one person can make a difference. I have to try, because this is a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit.